The owner, publisher and chief editor of the Nuevo Laredo, Tam. newspaper, El Manana, were arrested by state Judicial police for defamation and slander of the community's mayor, Monica Garcia Velasquez.
The three were arrested on charges that they are responsible for slanderous articles alleging that Garcia, a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, (PRI) is addicted to cocaine, spent time in a drug rehabilitation clinic for an addiction problem and funded her campaign with drug money. Garcia charged the paper with making false statements and wrongly accusing her.
Owner Ninfa Deandar Martinez, her son, publisher Heriberto Cantu Deandar and chief editor Jesus Lopez Tapia were ordered released on $1,200 bail each by Judge Raul Rodriguez Ornelas of the Tamaulipas state second Criminal Court.
In a written statement in El Manana, the journalists declared that the charges leading to their arrest were unfounded and claimed that the decision to arrest them was made by the Governor, Manuel Cavazos Lerma, and his "instrument" Garcia, who used the State office of Justice as an instrument of repression against the freedom of the press.
Sources: El Norte, AP in El Paso Times